It begins to look a lot like Christmas!

Published on 9th of December 2022
   

It does! We have our big tree up, a small tree that Mara keeps carrying back and forth, a cactus, and an advent calendar. 

What does a cactus have to do with Christmas? Once upon a time we had a big cactus. At Christmas time, Matteo has decided that the cactus also deserves some Christmas cheer and decorated it with some small toys. Since then there always was a Christmas cactus in Pagano family. Then it was time to move, the cactus found a new home. And in our new home in Palermo, Pagano family has got a new cactus. It was small, but it was loved well and grew big during the summer, and got its own share of Christmas cheer!


This post is going to be quite different from the rest. I wanted to have something festive also on my blog, but I've just started taking photos, so not much to post yet. I've decided that this post will grow and I'll be adding things and little stories as I am adding new photos, and I will wrap up by Christmas.



Our advent calendar of little paper houses.  We do use sweets, but that's not what kids find inside the houses. We make our kids work for their candy, mean parents that we are! In every house they find a little piece of paper with their tasks for the day - it can be a riddle, a small treasure hunt, sometimes a chore or a game. And candy comes once the task is completed.





This one is her personal tree. She keeps redecorating it and moving it around, inside and outside, then hiding either the tree or some of the ornaments. It's good fun watching her play with a tree that's her size.



Twelve days of Christmas, a favourite for some years already. By now everyone in the house knows this carol by heart.



Grumpy and giggling Christmas tree, performed by Maya. She also has an idea to dress up as a Christmas tree, hopefully we'll get around to doing it! Also, this is not how I envisioned this photo to turn out, but I love the twist she gave to my idea, and we both laughed a lot.






Decorating the tree. It's been done and redone at least three times, the bottom part. Our ornaments are quite a mix, a collection we started more than ten years ago. We have some straw and wooden ones, also felted, Lego ornaments kids made, real pinecones, paper ones made by Matteo, traditional baubles and other random bits. Last year Mara only managed to pull the baubles off, and that was all she was interested in. This year she can reach more and higher, and she wants them all. So Lego and straw ornaments had to travel to the top where she cannot reach, followed by paper and felted ones. The baubles and wooden ones remain at the bottom, hopefully they can stay there! Some ornaments travel around the house and decorate random places, then go back to the tree. Finding the missing baubles she removed can be part of a daily treasure hunt. This tree has a very interesting and active Christmas, I have to say!


This is our version of a classic Norman Rockwell painting "Boy with Head in Wreath". We had this idea with Maya to recreate some vintage Christmas cards or paintings this year, here's the first one.


Our Santa (who clearly is up to no good!) says hello and wishes everyone very merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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